The Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Med Center goes down, Green Hill Dr. gets flattened, and more in today’s demolition report, below.
Read more about: 77004, 77018, 77025, 77030, 77032, 77033, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions
Today’s list of Houston demolition permits features six houses ready to bite the dust. Where are they? Keep reading.
Read more about: 77003, 77008, 77028, 77091, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions
Coming down soon . . . in a neighborhood near you! It’s our daily report of sold demolition permits. Our list of casualties approved Friday begins after the jump.
Read more about: 77005, 77008, 77019, 77025, 77051, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions, Houston Heights, Montrose
The teaser website for the apartments-and-retail complex slated for that large, recently scraped site at the southwest corner of Kirby and Westheimer is up! What will you find there? For starters, a trance soundtrack you’ll have a tough time figuring out how to turn off, plus slick rendered views and a whizzy video of a dark and urban-looking streetscape where pedestrians wield shopping bags and hover precariously on balconies.
This is the former site of the River Oaks Tennis Center. The development is named West Ave, and to prove it they’re putting in a new street by the same name just west of Kirby, extending from Kipling to Westheimer. Of course the big news is the two floors of retail space facing Kirby, West Avenue, and Westheimer. On top of that: five stories of apartments, managed by Gables Residential. The parking garage is tucked in back.
After the jump: The plan and more images.
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Mixed Use, New Construction, New-Streets, Proposed Developments, Retail, River Oaks, Shopping, Upper Kirby
A teensy item appears in the middle of a long list of projects on the revised agenda of an obscure public agency. The list is voted on, and presto! Nine months years later The Westpark Tollway gets extended all the way to Kirby Drive!
Christof Spieler spots this exciting news—sure to make a lot of West U-area residents take notice—and complains:
Once a project is on a list that gets approved by the TPC, it’s a lot closer to happening. Months or years from now, a neighborhood might object. And they’ll be shown the list and told, “it’s in the plan. It got approved. There’s nothing you can do.” Pieces of paper can have a lot of power.
And this piece of paper came out of nowhere. There was no public announcement, let alone hearings. It was a last minute addition to the agenda. David Crossley of the Gulf Coast institute spotted it only because he was looking through the TPC web site. [emphasis added]
Photo: Flickr user Danburg Murmur
Read more about: 77005, 77027, 77081, 77098, Freeways, kirby, Toll-Roads, West University, Westpark Tollway
Disposing of older buildings used to be so simple. It’s tougher now, but it’s not impossible. You’ll just need to use some new techniques. If the buildings you want to demolish have a high enough profile, you’ll also need a good PR consultant who can help you with strategy.
For a while, it looked like Weingarten Realty might have some trouble tearing down its historic River Oaks Shopping Center, River Oaks Theater, and Alabama Bookstop (which used to be the Alabama Theater—back in the day when people watched movies instead of reading so much). When rumors first began to circulate, there was the big hullabaloo about the River Oaks Theater, and all those online petitions.
But since then, not so much. Weingarten clearly has its winning gameplan mapped out. How did they do it? How do you tear down an immensely popular older building in Houston today, and do it right?
The technique you need involves outrage bait. What’s that? Read on, after the jump!
Read more about: 77019, 77098, Demolitions, Development Strategy, Landmarks, Preservation, River Oaks, River-Oaks-Shopping-Center, River-Oaks-Theater, Shopping Centers, Weingarten Realty
